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SERIES OF LETTERS 



W n I T-T E i>f BY 



AM.AZIAH BUMPUS, "^"^ 

AND ADDRESSED TO 

GOV, JOHN DAVIS. 

ORIGIiVALLY PUBLISnED IN THE i^ORpyiK I)E3iOl'RAT. 

Revised by the luthcr, 



B e sJ U ii ai : 

NORFOLK DEMOCIIAT PRESS. 
1842. 



•G\8S 



^t2>t7 6 



N 



BUMPUS LETTEES. 



No. 1. 

Squantum, Jan. 12, 1842. 
To the Governor — 

Well, I see they have got your Message to the Legislature 
in the papers, and I have just been reading it. Some parts of 
it I like pretty well, but now and then I saw a thing that looked 
a little dubious, and so I thought I'd just set down and write 
you about it, and send the letter by our member, who comes 
home every Saturday and goes to town again the next Monday. 
I shall see him at meeting next Sunday, and I'll have the letter 
all ready, and slip it into his hand. You can send your answer 
by him, as you have a good chance to see him when he comes 
up to the State House. 

The first thing that bothered me in your Message was what you 
said about our Statute Books. You said — "We find there no 
stop-laws, forbidding the collection of honest debts." When I 
read that, "Fury, says I, that aint so, I guess the Governor's 
mistaken ihis time." And so I do, and I'H tell you why. Ear- 
ly last spring I sold neighbor Lucas the balance of my potato 
crop, say about ninety six bushels, at forty cents a bushel, they 
being special prime ones, and the right sort being rather scarce 
at that time you know. Well, my neighbor wanted I should 
wait a little while for my money, and as he seemed to be driving 
a pretty good business, and lived easy as they say, I did'nt think 
but what it was safe enough, and did'nt mind much about it. — 
Along about the middle of last summer, I was reading the Nor- 
folk Democrat, and amongst other things I saw that the "second 
meeting" of neighbor Lucas' creditors was called at the Squire's 
office, to prove claims, and act upon the subject of the debtor's 
discharge. Says I, perhaps that concerns me, for I believe 
that neighbor Lucas owes me for them potatoes yet. So I went 



4 

to the 'second meeting' aiid passed in my bill; Lucas said it was 
all right, and the 'Squire allowed it. The 'Squire then put 
neighbor Lucns on his oatli, and made him swear that he had 
given up every thing to his creditors, and then he gave him a 
certificate of discharge from all his debts. The Squire's clerk 
Imd been put in Assignee, and I stepped up to him and asked 
him when it would be convenient to pay that bill of potatoes of 
mine. He opened his eyes pretty wide, I tell you, and says he, 
the assignment will probably pay fourteen or lifteen cents on 
the dollar, and I shall be ready to pay that about the last of 
next October. Well, I got it the other day, say five dollats and 
thirty seven cents, and that's all that I am likely to get for my 
ninety six bushels of potatoes Now, Neighbor Lucas has got 
about five thousand dollars since that, by his v/iie's lather, who 
died the latter part of last summer, and he has put about two 
thousand more on to the end of that^ by "shaving notes" in 
Boston these hard times. But he wont pay me a cent, and when 
I asked him the other day for them thirty three dollars and three 
cents he owed me for potatoes, he laughed at me, and then took 
out his sheep skin pocket book, and showed me his certificate 
of discharge from the Master in Chancery. Now 'Squire you 
see if it had not been for that Chancery Law, I should have 
sued neighbor Lucas, and got my debt; but as it was, you see, 
it operated as a "stop law forbidding the collection of an hon- 
est debt," though he had a plenty to pay me with. I was rather 
earnest you should know about this, because some pco[)le might 
be mean enough to say that you was not so dreadful honesV after 
all, when you made your brags tliat there want no stop-laws on 
our statute books. 

There was something you said too about suspension laws, in 
3'our Message to the honorable Legislature, and I want to write 
you about that too, but I have not got time now, to say all I 
xvant to, and on the whole I think I'll wait till next week, and 
send it in by the milk man, and that will be pretty handy, because 
he. leaves milk at the United States Hotel where you board. If 
you don't gel time to answer this, so as to send it by our Rep- 
resentntive when he comes home, it v.'ill be a capital good chance 
for you to send it out by the milk man as soon after as possible, 
that is if you get up early enough and if you don't you can give 
it to one of the giils and ask Her to hand it to him. 

Yours till death, 

AMAZIAH BUMPUS. 

.John Davi^?. Ksqiiiro. Stale House, Boston. 



No. 2. 

SQUANTirM, Jan 19, 1842* 
To the Governor — 

This is to inform you that I enjoy good health, and I hope you 
do too, I expected to get an answer to my other letter before 
this, as I know you got it, for our member says he handed it in 
to your office and gave it to- the old gentleman that waits and 
tends, and runs the errands for you and the Council. But I 
suppose you have been pretty busy lately seeing the new Coun- 
cillors, and laying your heads together to see what you can do. 
Our County sends you a pretty decent sort ofa man lor a Coun- 
cillor, but he 'aint so dreadful hud after all. I some expected 
to see the Legislature choose Squire Copeland of Roxbury and 
Boston, Councillor for Norfolk, as I knew he wanted it pretty 
bad. But I suppose his turn will come by and by, and when it 
does, you will find him an all fired smart man, particularly on 
Sub-Treasuries with specie claws I was down to Milton one 
night a little more than a year ago, and heard him make a 
speech to the wiiigs of that neighborhood, and he told them how 
them specie claws were a going to haul all the gold and silver 
out of the Boston banks and lock it up, and so prevent the banks 
from lending the money, and make the merc!;ants smash. I felt 
considerable frightened when I heard him tell of that, but I was 
not frightened long; for as soon as he had done, another plaguy 
smart fellow from Boston came stamping into the hall in great 
cowhide boots; — I wish I could think of his name, because he 
is a pretty likely looking chap, and would make a good Aid for 
you, but I cant; however, he had sometliing to do with the fish- 
ing business, and I guess he kept a salt fish shop down on long- 
wharf Well, he got up to make his speech, and he told us that 
the Sub-Treasury was alf a humbug, that there want no specie 
claws to it, and that the government did not get a Dollar of spe- 
cie by it, only checks and bank bills. This made considerable 
of a laugh, and every body looked round to see how Squire 
Copeland took it; but he hid himself behind his white neck- 
cloth, and so nobody could see his face. 

Howsomever that 'aint neither here nor there, only as I was 
saying, I suppose your new Councillors have kept you kind of 
busy, so you have not had time to answer my letter; but I don't 
mind that much, and so I write you this one according to prom- 
ise. All that I have said down to this, don't have any thing to 
do with your message to the Legislature, and I don't know how 
I happened to think of it, but it came on sort of natural like, and 
so I thought I would just vt^rite it down, pretty much as great 
authors do some funny story that they call an episode But 
wiiat comes after, concerns the message, so look sharp, and 
read careful. 



6 

As I was saying in my other letter, there is sompthing in your 
message saying that in our Statute Kook "wo find no susi)t'nsion 
acts, I'endoring the administration of justice abortive " I did 
not ahogether like this, because there are a few of us up this 
way tliat have not forgotten the suspension act of the Legislature 
passed in 1837-8, by which the suspension of specie payments 
by the Banks was legalized, and the twenty four cent penalty 
v-hicli they tiius incurred was suspended. This squinted a little 
towards rendering the administiation of justice abortive, because 
it prevented the holders of bank hills irom getting that justice 
done them which the banks agreed to wiien they accepted their 
charters. Gracious, how in mercy could yon forget that act. 
when you wrote that smart sentence about " suspension acts?" 
I wish you ivoidd be a little more particular next time, because 
some folks catch up every such little thing, and say — ho7icst 
folks have dreadful short memories. I was in hopes that scrape 
you got into about Mr. Buchanan's speech, would make you 
a little more careful, but you must look out sharper, or them 
Loco Focos will trip your heels up yet' 

Further down in the message you say, " we do not find the 
Commonwealth borrowing money to become a stockholder" of 
our monied institutions. Well, I suppose you don't call a Rail 
Road Corporation a " monied institution" down your way, but I 
don't see such a plaguy sight of difiTerence between the State's 
borrowing money to become a stockholder in a Bank or a Rail- 
road Company, and I suppose you have not forgotten that the 
State owns a heap of stock in the Western Rail Road, and that 
all the money she has yet paid for it, she has had to borrow on 
interest. After that, I read along a piece and did not see any 
thing that needed writing to you about, though perhaps I may 
have a little chat with you about some things I read, when I 
come to Boston this winter. It was dreadful kind of you just to 
jog ihe memory of the whigs about Gen. Harrison, because they 
seem to have forgotten that such a man ever lived, and even all 
the great days that his exploits rendered glorious in 1840, now 
pass by with as little notice or regard as an old fashioned Elec- 
tion Day. I see parson Stone of Beverly took your hint, and 
made a speech about the General in the House, but even he 
had the matter so little at heart that he had to write his speech 
down and hide it in a book called Pub. doc. from which he i-ead 
it while pretending to look for some statistics; at least, So our 
member told me the other day. 

You ta'k pretty smart about the State Debt, and the way the 
State money matters have been managed, I screamed right out 
when I saw you shifting the blame oft' of your shoulders, and 
putting it on to the two Houses, because that is a tiling T never 
thought of; and yet why not.? They make the laws in the first 
place, and you only approve of them, that's all. The way you 



managed that subject of the State Debt put mo in mind of a fal- 
low 1 once saw Uy to leap over a high wail; he went oft' nigh 
about a half a mile,, and then run up to the wall with all his 
might, but when he got there he was too tired to leap over, and 
so he laid down and rested himself. Just so you managed the 
State Debt. You got an idea that the people looked upon it as 
a considerable of a high wall for a State'to build up that had so 
much income as Massachusetts, ' and so jo« concluded that you" 
would show them in your message, that it w^as not high at all by 
leaping over it So you run back away offto 1826, and pufted 
and blowed and tugged along up to 1841, and by the time you 
got there, you was about tired out, and §o you quietly laid down 
side of the debt, instead of leaping over it, and tell the honora- 
ble members that it 'aint no larger than it was last year, and if 
any thing a leeile smaller! You was pretty sly too. in going- 
back to 1825, because that gave you a chance to lug in the Lu- 
natic Hospital, Revised Statutes, Rainsford Island Hospital, 
Deaf and Dumb and Blind expenditures, &.c. &c and thus show 
a mighty heap of good tor the debt incurred. When I read that 
part to the 'Squire, says he, "honest John is a sly old fox, but I 
don't see why there can't be an honest fox as well as any thing 
else." I saw, just as soon as I looked at that part of the mes- 
sage' what you was driving at, and why you said you should not 
specify dates; and you did not say a word but the truth when 
you said that way would be " more convenient and less tedious." 
If you had to begin your story in 1834, when you was first^cho- 
sen Governor, and specified dates, it would not have been nigh 
so convenient for you; because there was a balance in the Trea- 
sury then of $408,336 after paying all debts, according to that 
letter Governor Lincoln wrote you, when you stepped into his 
shoes; and most of them public charities, Hospitals, and thintrs 
that you allude to were all built and paid for before that time. 
It would have been plaguy hard work for you to have shown 
what the State had got to show for the ^408,336 balance and the 
$300,000 debt she now owes; but by mixing it all up together, 
its ten chances to one if the people don't think they have got all 
them improvements you mention, for the 700, and odd thousand 
Dollars, and say they are cheap enough at that, I shall write 
you again next week, so no more at present from 

Yours truly, 

_ ^ ^ AMAZIAH BUxMPUS. 

John Davis, Esquire, State House, Boston. 

Squantum, Jan. 26, 1842. 
To Governor John Davis — 

Dear Sir: This is to say that I have not received any line 
from you yet, and I am a little dubious about writing to you 



y. 



8 

again, all tilings considered. In fact, I had about made up my 
mind to hold on, and not say another word to you about any 
thing, because I didn't think it was hardly fair treatment not to 
drop me so much as a civil note, saying that mine had been 
duly received, and contents noted, or something of that kind, 
even if you was Governor; lor I look upon it in a political 
sense, that I am a greater man than you, because you are only 
a hired servant of the people, while 1 am one of the people 
themselves, and you know the good Book says a servant is not 
above his master. 

I worked myself into a considerable of a pet about it, but the 
other day, when I saw our member, he said he guessed you was 
going to wait untill 1 had got through with my letters, and then 
you was going to take your turn. I never thought of that, but 
its just as likely as not, and a little more so, because it aint 
likely you vv'ould know how to take me, untill you'd seen all that 
1 had got to say, and so you would have to wait till my spell was 
out, before you took yours. Premising thus, as the parson says, 
I mean to drive as fast as ever I can with the rest of my letters, 
so as to give you a chance to answer : and so this is the third of 
my lot. 

I left off in my last where you was slicking over the State 
debt as smooth as you could, and winding off by saying that if 
the Commonwealth would realize what was due to it, there was 
no good reason why she could not pay her debts. That was a 
sly hint at the money the General Government owes the State 
for military expenses in the last war, says I, — and it's about as 
much as honest John can have the face to say on the subject, be- 
cause he was a blue light tory in the time when them expenses 
were incurred, and was calling James Madison and the Govern- 
ment all sorts of hard names in his federal paper up at Worces- 
ter. But I reconed without my host that time, for in the next 
sentence you come out plump for the whole sum spent by that 
head sirorag Governor, interest and all; and faith, I must say 
you did it about as cool as if you never saw the Worcester Spy, 
or skyed up your hat when you heard the British had burned the 
Capitol. 

What you said about the plan for distributing the proceed? of 
the public lands among the States disappointed me some: be- 
cause I knew you had been to Washington a good deal, and had 
a chance to know all about them lands that the distribution bill 
works upon. I suppose you know from the public documents 
put into your hands as a Senator from this State, that nine tenths 
of them very lands now on hand never did belong to the States 
no how nor no way, but were bought with the money of the 
General Government, taken right out of the peoples pockets by 
duties: and furthermore that all the money the government ever 
got for all the lands it ever sold, did'nt begin to pay the cost and 



9 

expenses on the lands by some fifteen millions of dollars. Why, 
did'nt you know them tilings? I guess you did once, but had 
forgot them. Well, I supposed of course you knovved that and 
a good deal more, and so would come right out against taking 
that money, particularly when the United States Treasury was 
so dreaduil'poor it could'nt pay its honest debts But you tell 
us in your message that that ".vast and invaluable domain has 
been rapidly wasting away, under a system of policy becoming 
annually more weak and inefficient"— Vs' ell now, if you call 
growing up them great splendid ijev.' States, out West, with their 
millions of free and happy citizens, a wasiino; aiuay poHcij, you 
have spoken the truth, if not, not. When you write them let- 
ters to me, I hope you won't forget to show me how them public 
lands could have been used to more adv.antage tothis whole coun- 
try for the last thirty or forty years than in building up that great 
heap of new States out West. 

It seems however by your message, now that the land money 
is to be given to the' States, the lands are to be administered 
under a difTeren tsystem of policy from that weak, inefficient, and 
tfffs/ing- fa/'fty one that makes you feel so bad. But I don't see 
why you did not tell us what that new system was, and when it 
was fixed up, and who by, for just as true as I'm alive, there 
aint a man, woman or child up this way that has heard a word 
about it, and some of them have read the Distribution bill too. 
I don't see according to that bill, but what lands are now to be 
sold for the same prices, by the same chaps, at the same land offi- 
ces, and the same allowances made to the new States, just the 
same as they were beforejthis bill passed Congress; and you ought 
tell us all right off what the new policy is that won't waste aivay 
the lands so. At any rate you won't /orgef to tell me about it 
when you write them letters, because I'm puzzled awfully every 
time I think what it can be. 

There is one thing I like in your message Governor, any 
way; and that is the good round plump way that you ad- 
mit that this giving away the public money out of the 
United States Treasury, will make Congress have to put on a 
higher tariff, and then argue right ofF that it's one of the best 
things in the world for the producing classes to pay heavy duties 
to the government on what they eat, and drink, and wear. — 
There is no shilly-shally about you in that business, and you put 
a bold face upon it, and dive right into the matter. It's a pretty 
hard row to hoe, I know, to make people believe that, but you 
come up to the scratch like a man, and when I've thought the 
matter over a little, and composed my head, I shall just write you 
another letter, to let you see whether I have come to the con- 
clusion that you are as honest in that, as in everything else. 

Untill then yours to serve. 

AMAZIAH BUMPUS. 



10 

p. S. TiiG State is rathei- poor just now, and there don't 
seem to be much chance ol" getting that land money of tlic Gen- 
eral Government, and so I have hit upon a capital plan to raise 
a little just to keep the wheels greased: and that is for the State 
to sell the title of the Charles River Bridge Corporation that she- 
has just been buyin:;- for twenty five thousand dollars! To be 
sure money is pretty hard, but I gross it would fetch something 
at auction, even though the United States Supreme Court deci- 
ded it vva'iit worth any thing. 'Aint it a capital idea? I won't 
say a word about tlie hint, and you may propose it to the Gener- 
al Court as your own plan. A. B. 



No, 4. 

Squantum, Feb. 1, 1842, 
To Governor John Davis — 

In my last letter to you I just hinted that I meant to think 
over your notions about that Distribution act being a great ben- 
eiit to the people, because it opened the way for putting more 
taxes on us in the shape of a tariff. Well, to day, after I got 
through building a little piece of stone w^all I've been making, I 
)ust sot down and begun to think it over a little. While I was 
doing this, Betsey, that's my lawful wife, she came into the 
room, and seeing me kind of quiet like, says she, " Jlmiziali 
v^hat are you thinking of?" " Thinking of the tariff," says I. 
She laughed right out; — " You, what do you know about that," 
says she, " you'd better leave that to Peter Parley, and Con- 
gressers and such like, for I don't see as it is any of your con- 
cern." But when I come to let her see that I knew sometiiing 
about it, and told her what the tariff was, and how it worked, — 
how a tariff was a tax put on the cost of goods which we had to 
use in our family, so as to make them cost us more, and how 
every body had to pay a tax in that way according to what they 
liad to buy, and not according to what they were worth, — why 
then she began to change her tune, and said she didn't wonder I 
thought about it, and she should think every poor man would 
ihink about it, and try to do something to set the matter right. 
I was glad to hear her talk so, becauss in the main, she is a 
sensible woman, and I wanted too to let every poor man have a 
chance to know what she said about it; and knowing you are 
a great friend to the poor folks, I thought I would just mention 
it in this letter, so that you might print it in your next message, 
and let them all see it 

But, to proceed, as the parson says, I want to find out how 
that Distribution bill is going to be of any benefit to the people, 
by giving Congress a chance to put on more tariff. Your idea 
i.-j that the money which our State will get for its share, should 



11 

oo to "relieve the State from the pressure of obligations," 
which is a short cut for saying — go to pay State debts— and like 
most of the shori cuts in the roads up our way, it's a good deal 
further round than the old way. But I suppose they wouldn't 
pick you out for Governor if you used the aame words as other 
folks, to express your meaning Well, if it was not for this 
money, the State debts would have to be paid by a tax upon the 
property of the citizens, of which the 'Squire, who is pretty well 
off, and has a small family, would have to pay his share, accor- 
ding to what he is worth, and I, who am rather poorly off, and 
have a large family, would have to pay my share, according to 
what I am worth So far, so good. This money from the Gen- 
eral Government will save the 'Squire from paying a large tax, 
and me a small one. Now, Governor, I want you to look a little 
further, and see how it works. To fill up the ;;ap in the Treas- 
ury which this Distribution bill makes, according to your story, 
Congress has got to put on more tariff; that is, we have all got 
to pay more for our tea, and coffee, and salt, and sugar, and 
cotton and woollen cloth, and every thing else that they put a 
duty on, than we do now. Now because the 'Squire has not got 
much family, he don't have to buy a great many of them things, 
only about half as many as 1 do, because my family is a good 
deal larger than his. So you see the upshot of it is, that I shall 
have to pay more of that higher tariff than he does, though the 
assessors put him down on the tax books as worth just ten times 
as much as I am. That is, I have to pay in the price of my 
/2:oods, twice as much tax by means of a tariff, as the 'Squire 
does, and yet he is worth ten times as much money as I am. 
According to my reckoning then, I have to pay twenty times as 
much tariff tax as I ought to; because I say, all taxes ought to 
be according to property. 

Perhaps you don't see what I am driving at yet; but you will 
see it as soon as I have brought both ends together, as plain as 
a sign post. One end is, that the money from the distribution 
act, saves a direct State tax on property, of which I should have to 
pay only my just share; the other end is, that the distribution act 
makes a higher tariff tax on goods, necessary, of which I shall 
have to pay twenty times my just share; and putting the two 
ends together, the consequence is, that to save me from one 
dollar of direct State tax, I have got to pay tioenly dollars of in- 
direct tariff tax. Now, I reckon, you see what I am up to. 
Aint it just so? Is there any other way you can fix it? I guess 
not. Governor, and I am dreadful sorry that you did not set 
down and think this all out before you said much in favor of that 
Distribution act, because you see, a'^ter all, it wont be any ben- 
efit to the people, and the less you j -aise it, the better for you. 
You may think that there is more difference between my case 
and the 'Squires than there is amongst the people generally, and 



12 

1 suppose there is; but then you see, the mopt of the people 
come nearer to my case than they do to the 'Squires, and so of 
course the Distribution bill will work a plaguy sight more mis- 
chief than it will good to them. To use a reguldr hard cider 
simile, " it will be saving at the tap and leaking at the bung- 
hole." 

Perhaps you will crawl out of all this, by saying that you 
meant that this benefit to the people will come out oithe greater 
protection for manufactures that a high tariff will give; but 1 
rather think you wdl give that up when you come to see how I 
argue it out. In the first place, my idea is, that the manufac- 
turers themselves, that is, the bosses, and they who get the prof- 
its lor manufacturing, in good fat dividends, are a dreadful small 
part of the whole people; in the second place, the duty p»it up- 
on importations for the protection of manulactures, is a bounty 
collected from the whole people, and, as you just saw in what I 
said above, in the most unequal way; this bounty is given to 
the bosses and stockholders who get the profits of manufactur- 
ing, in the increased price which the duty on the foreign article 
enables them to charge; and by this you see, in the third place, 
that the whole people aie taxed to protect a few manufacturers 
who are mostly rich enough to protect themselves. Perhaps you 
will say, Governor, in answer to this, that "the people in the 
long run do not have to pay higher prices to the manufacturer, 
because protection encourages manufactures and enables them 
to sell lower." But then you know, he will not be very apt to 
put his goods down lower, unless there are other goods in the 
market which can be sold lower, so the price is brought down 
by competition in the market, and yet your protective tariff by 
shutting out the foreign article, prevents this very competition 
which makes goods cheaper to the people. Aint it so? But 
Governor, a word in your ear; I once heard a rich manufactur- 
er say that improvements in machinery had made goods cheap, 
more and oftener than all the protection in the world. Well, 
improvements will neve? be made unless competition stimulates 
them, and so, by your high tariff you see, you not only tax the 
people unjustly, hut also shut out to a certain extent, the very 
competition which makes cheap goods. I rather guess you 
can't get away from this, and if so be, as you turn it off by say- 
ing it is only theory, I shall touch you on the other side by a 
little mite of facta which show the same thing. 

In Great Britain, as I suppose you know, they have a higher 
protective tariff on manufactures than they do any where else in 
the world, in fact its as much impossible to get a rag of Ameri- 
can goods into that country, as it is to keep their laborers from 
starvation and death. Now, if y.our story is true, the people of 
Great Britain ought to be better off, and the laborers in Facto- 
ries better clothed and better fed than any other people. But 



13 

instead of that, there is move miseiy and sLifFeiitig among the 
poorer classes there, than there is on any other spot of the same 
size on the face of the earth. Though the bosses and manufac- 
turers flourish and get rich, yet the iaboreis by working two 
thirds of every twenty-four hours, cannot get enough to cover 
their bodies with decent raiment, or provide themselves with 
enough of the commonest Ibod; This is the case when the man- 
ufactories are in full operation; but when in consequence of 
having glutted the market with goods, they suspend lull work, 
and operate only half or a third of the time, as is the case ju'st 
now, why, then, it is as bad again for the laborers, and death 
from exposure, and starvation among- them is as common as 
health and happiness is among the frugal farmers of this country. 
What can you have more convincing than this, what more direct 
and positive, to show that high tariffs are of no benefit to the 
people at large, and a withering curse upon the laboring class- 
es? I've got a little warm about this, and so I guess I will cool 
ofTa little, and not say any more until next time. 
Vour friend to serve, 

AMAZIAH BUMPUS. 
John Davis, Esquire, State House, Boston. 



Mo 5. 

SquantuiM, Feb. 8, 1842, 
To Gov. Juhn Davis — 

I mean to write off my letters to you just as fast as I can get 
time, because I suppose you are getting kind oj" restless and 
want take up your pen and be after me. But the subject is get- 
ting a little thicker than it was in the first of it, when I touched 
you up on the State expenses and such like, and so you see I 
have to handle it more careful, and mind my eye, so as to bring 
it out all straight and regulax'. But I guess I can go through with 
it, though I'd no more idea of having such a job on my shoul- 
ders when I begun that first letter to you, than you had of get- 
ting into such an ugly scrape in the Senate when you wrote out 
that flagitious speech about what Mr. Buchanan did not say — 
By the way, I always thought that scrape put the grace on to 
your title of honest, so as it will stick to you the longest day of 
your life. I reccollect you pretended to be hopping mad about 
what Buchanan said in answer to that speech of yours; but af- 
ter all said and done, I don't believe you was in half such a fu- 
ry as I was when I finished off my last letter to you. 

You recollect that I was arguing that high tariffs don't make 
"happy laborers, any more than fair words butter parsnips, and 
to prove it by facts I just fetched up the case of the laborers in 
the manufactories of England, where they have a tariff so high 



14 

tliut it aliiiost keeps the sun out of the country Thinking 
over ihnni thini^s, and writing down on paper how them poor 
I'olhjws suiiered, riled me up so tiiat 1 had to knock riglit off; I 
could not write another word, and when I got up from the table 
and put my pen and ink up into the cupboard, wife said my (ace 
was just as red as our turkey-cock. Every time I've thought 
of it since, and seen there is just such a set of" mm in this coun- 
try as tliem English nobles, who want to get all the favors they 
can out of government for themselves, and carry on the same 
sort of capers here that the nabobs do in England so as to get 
all the laborers earnings to themselves, — I say whenever I think 
of them things, my blood boils right up, and 1 feel mad enough 
to bite a board nail in two Now when I talk about these things 
to 'Squire Copeland, — who is an all-fired smart man, and ouglit 
to he Deputy Collector of Boston, or one of your Councillors 
at the least, — he says the case is very different with the manu- 
facturinf system in England from what it is in this country, and 
that the laborers there are a very different kind of people. — 
"Look," s^ays he, poking his arm out straight, and putting *liis 
right leg forward in a dreadful pretty way, that would have put 
Gen. Harrison in mind of Mr. Demosthenes right off, if he, poor 
old gentlemen, had lived to see the 'Squire; — "look at Man- 
chester, and then look at Lowell." He thought that was a set- 
tler, and I don't know but you do. But just look here a second, 
Governor, and I reckon you will see some reason why there is 
a difference. In the first place, Manchester in England has 
been carrying on the business for a great many years, and gen- 
eration after generation of its population have been factory la- 
borers, and factory laborers' children. In fact, there is now in 
that city, and in other large manufacturing towns of England, 
a distinct race of operatives in factories, a race perpetuating 
its bodily and mental deformities, its squallid misery and slavish 
subjection from father to son and from mother to daughter with 
as much regularity as the titles and estates of their unfeeling 
oppressors are handed down from generation to generation, by 
hereditary descent and the laws of primogeniture. Them things 
are the fruits of a long series of years of the operation of the 
factory system in England, and they are the causes of the 
present abominably wretched state of the manufacturing popula- 
tion of England. Now as to Lowell, you and I can remember 
when that city was a barren plain, cut u|) with streams and ponds 
and it is only about twenty years since the first manufacturing 
corporation was chartered there. These operatives came from 
the green hills and the fertile valleys of our happy land, bring- 
in"- with them the blessings of vigorous and robust Yankee con- 
stitutions, which will hold out against the pernicious influence of 
the factory system for some time. We have not as yet had a 
single generation of Lowell operatives born there and grown up 



15 

to take their parents places, but when there ha;? been genera- 
tion after generation born there, and in consequence of the in- 
creased competition for labor am :)ng a race ot oeings that will 
by that time be fit for nothing else, parents are compelled to sell 
the services of their little infants, in order to get something 
lo keep them from starving, — then those who live to see that day 
will see there aint such a dreadful sight of difference between 
Manchester and Lowell after all, no matter what 'Squire Ben 
may now say to the contrary. • These evils can arise only from 
an over encouragement of the factory system by means of high 
tariffs, and corporation privileges — and yet you and your frieads 
are driving right on full tilt, to do all you can to increase the 
tariff, and perpetuate the corporation privileges. Now Gov- 
ernor, I want to tell you once for all, that all your gammon, and 
all your talk about the division of labor, won't cheat the people 
out of their common sense, or make them believe that heavy 
taxes, and unequal pnivileges to a few rich nabobs, are going to 
help poor people along any, and so you might as well give it 
up, and talk about something else. 

You want a higher tariff put on, to protect American manu- 
factures, you say. But they seem to be doing well enough now, 
and the only effect of your higher tariff will be to take money 
out of the pockets of the whole people and put it into the strong 
boxes of the corporations, not to be kept there as a security for 
what they owe their creditors, but to be divided out among the 
stockholders in good fat dividends. As to your higher tariff 
helping the laborers in your factories, by enabling the corpora- 
tions to give them moi'e wages, that's all pretty smart moonshine. 
If them wonderful triends of the laboring classes, the Corpora- 
tions, are so willing to give the laborers more wages, why don't 
they cut down their fat dividends of ten and fifteen per cent, a 
little, and divide that amount among the laborers? Their sym- 
pathy lor the laborers has never been shown in this way, and 
if they should get a chance by a higher tariff to sponge the pub- 
lic out of mope price for their goods, they would no more think 
. of raising the v.'ages of their laborers than they would of send- 
ing money over to England to help the starving operatives of 
that country. The fact is, Governor, and you can't get away 
from it, that wages are regulated by the plenty or scarcity of la- 
borers, and that if manufacturers can hire their laborers at one 
price, they won't pay them a higher one. In this country the 
wages of laborers in factories are regulated by the price of la- 
bor in other kinds of business, because the operatives are not 
yet a distinct race, but aie recruited from the other pursuits of 
life, such as agriculture, mechanics, trade, &c. Consequently 
if wages are high in these latter pursuits, the manufacturera 
must pay high wages to tempt laborers into their factories, but 
if wages are low in other branches of labor, then they avail 



16 

themselves of ihat fact to put down tlie wayes in factories, — 
When in the course of time our manufacturing system gets to 
be as bad as that oi" England, and the race of operatives iiere as 
there sliall be fit for notliing else, still less vv'ouid a tarilT affect 
the rate of wages; because the laborers being fit lor no other 
pursuit, and existing in great abundance, they must starve or 
take up with such wages as the manufacturers are disposed to 
give them, — which will always be just enough to keep them from 
starvation. If Congress were to-morrow to put on another 
twenty per cent, duty on manufactured goods, who supposes that 
the nianuiacturcrs would pay their opeiatives more wages? No, 
the only effect would be, to give them greater profits, make them 
more rich and powerful, and able to control more efTectually the 
price of labor Such is the operafion of a high tariff in England, 
it has established the slurvahoa prices in that country; such will 
it be here, and when your folks get up another hard cider ca- 
rousal, they had better tell the truth by carrying a banner in- 
scribed High Tariff and Starvation Prices. 
Yours lovingly, 

AMAZIAH BUMPUS. 
John Davis, Esquire, State House, Boston. 



No. 6. 

Squantum, Feb. 15, 1842. 
ITo the Governor — 

Perhaps you have got a notion into your head, from what I've 
been writing you about the manufacturing system, that 1 am 
ao-ainst the whole business, but there is where you are mistaken, 
if so be as you do think so. My notion is that manufacturing is 
all very well, because it gives employment, encourages ingenu- 
ity, and adds to our stock ol comforts and enjoyments; but when 
it is pushed too far by artificial means, as it is in England, and 
as your high tariff and starvation prices-system, would push it 
here, why then I think it comes as nigh about being a curse to 
the people as anything you can imagine. My plan is to let ev- 
ery tub stand on its own bottom, pretty much and I reckon in 
the long run, that's about the best way to have things go on for 
the mutual benefit of all concerned. 

I think you've got my ideas now pretty correct, as to the good 
a high tariflfwill do the laboring classes; and now, Governor, I 
want to just show you what I think ivill help the laboring classes 
and at the same time protect American manufactures as slick as 
grease; and that is a sound currency, of uniform value. Gra- 
cious! — says you — "now I guess he's going to write a sermon on 
the banks" — But no such thing. Governor. I'm only going to 
show you what my notion is about the effect of currency on the 
proaperity of the people, and the protection of their industry. I 



17 

suppose there is no doubt thata. laboring man in this country can 
produce as much as a hiborer in any other country; well then, 
what is the reason that the laborers of other countries should 
supply us with goods which our own laborers can make. It is 
because their goods are made in a country where the currency 
is sounder than ours, — where one dollar m specie is not repre- 
sented by ten paper dollars. So their goods are not represen- 
ted by so much money when they are made, as ours are ; that 
is their cost is less, and they can send them to this country and 
sell them for less money in our currency than ours cost to make 
them, and draw the specie and carry it home, and so make a 
handsome profit by the operation. Now you propose to remedy 
the evil by putting a high duty on these foreign goods ; but as 
I showed you in one of my other letters, this high duty raises 
the price of our goods also, and so the foreigner can afford to 
pay the high duty out of the profits he makes by the difference 
between his currency and ours, and out of the enhanced prices 
that the high duty enables him to sell his goods for, and still 
make money out of us by the operation. In this way the higher 
price in our market, caused b}'- the higher duty, gives the for- 
eigner about the same advantage from his sounder currency, as 
he had before, and thus the evil is but slightly affected, if at all. 
Nowjust look at my remedy, which is to make our currency as 
sound as his, that is, as valuable dollar for dollar as his is ; and 
then our goods in our market would be represented by the same 
value that his are in his market, and we being on the spot, of 
course can sell cheaper than he who has to freight his goods 
here from foreign countries. This cures the evil at once, you 
see, Governor. A sound currency is the best protector then, 
for home industry from foreign competition; and that it is also the 
best protector from the tricks of speculators, the stagnations in 
business, the failures and losses which now attend business, I guess 
nobody doubts, since the failure of the United States Bank, and 
a hundred others that might be mentioned. 

But perhaps you will say the laborer won't get so much price 
for his wages if the currency is made sounder. He may not get 
so much in amount, but what he does get will be surer, 
and will buy more ; while a great part of what he now 
loses by the tricks of speculators and monopolists, — who can not 
flourish with a sound currency because they would have to risk 
too much, — would be saved to him- These, with the steadier 
and more regular employment which a sound currency would 
ensure, would make him much better off than he now is. So 
you see, a sound currency, as good as that of other countries, 
would be the best thing to protect manufactures, and for the 
prosperity of the laborer. And who knows, but what with 
these advantages, and yankee ingenuity, the manufactures of 



lb 

the freemen of America, would supersede that of the rfronea anrf 
serfs of Europe, even in their own markets? 

Having now told you what a high tarifl" wont do, and what a 
sou^id currency will, I want to say a few words to you about en- 
couraging manufactures, by means of corpoi-ations, I think that's 
a bud business, and I'll tell you why The great object in this 
country is or ought to be, to produce as much individual pros- 
perity as possible I take it, it is better for a country, that a 
thousand men should do well and prosper, than that ten should 
grow rich and the other nine hundred and ninety be just able to 
live from day to day. Corporations tend to make a few very 
rich, and the great mass dependent upon these few. They are 
doing for this country, what the aristocracy of England does for 
that country, heaping up here and there great mountains of 
riches with vast swamps of poverty between them. Corpora- 
tions are not for the benefit of man, but money; they are crea- 
tures of mammon not of God. Their charters confer privileges 
and exemptions upon them, the tendencies of which are to draw 
capital together in large masses, and thus enable the managers 
of corporations to drive the individual out of the business. It is 
hard enough for a man with small means to carry on business 
when he has to compete with others of larger means, but this is 
the natural advantage which capital enjoys, and there is no help 
for it; but when by Charters of Incorporation you associate large 
masses of capital together, it is still harder for the single indi- 
vidual to compete with the corporation in the same business, and 
he must give up, and hire himself to them, or seek some other 
pursuit. 

Any man can see that this is the effect of Corporations for bu- 
siness purposes, and here in our County we have some experi- 
ence to confirm it. Before corporations became so fashionable, 
we used to have quite a number of Cotton Factories scattered 
through tlie County, belonging to individuals and carried on by 
them. Wliere are they now? Shut up and going to decay, or 
converted to other purposes. What has driven these people 
from the l)usiness, and consigned their Factories to ruin? The 
monoj)oliziiig corporations which have grasped the whole busi- 
ness, by means of their immense capitals, and unlimited credit. 
Who are the gainers by the change? Not the owners of these 
factories, driven from their business, and their property laid 
waste; not the laborers of the villages where they are situated — 
compelled to abandon their employment, or forsake their pleas- 
ant and healthy homes and live in the crowded and unhealthy 
Manchesters ot America; not the public, -.-compelled to pay the 
prices for goods that a few monopolizing corporations may agree 
to exact, instead of enjoying the benefit of a free competition; 
none are the gainers, except a few rich nabobs whose capital ie 
invested in those Corporations, paying thera an annual income 



of twenty or thirty per cent. Corporati:)!! privileges ennble a 
few to monopolise the business of miinuracturiiig, do as nmch 
business and ni;ikc as uiiich profit as they please, and dole out 
to their operatives also, just such wages as they please. They 
tend to restore the old orders of Lords and dependants, masters 
and slaves, and are of no possible benefit to the public at large, 
as compared with the great evils they tend to produce. Some 
able writer has said, and all Christendom confirms it, that " as- 
sociated wealth is the Dynasty of modern States," — and what I 
would ask, furnishes greater facilities for associating wealth, 
and thus producing this most heartless and tyrannical Dynasty 
that ever ruled over mankind, than these same Corporations that 
occupy so prominent a place in your political creed? Governor, 
think of these things and more anon. 

Yours affectionately, 

AMAZIAH BUMPUS. 
John Davis, Esquire, State House, Boston. 



). 7. 

Squantum, Feb. 23, 1842. 
To the Governor — 

I've got such a jumping tooth-ache that I don't feel a bit like 
writing to you to-day, but as my time to write has come, I sup- 
pose i must say a word or two just to keep you from forgetting 
me. I suppose you will be after me pretty quick, full tilt, be- 
cause I see the General Court is about ready to rise, and after 
that you will have plenty of time to write all you want to I shall 
be more afraid of you about the tariff than anything else, be- 
cause you and Webster and the other big folks have a dreadful 
cunning way of making folks believe your high tariff doctrines 
in spite of their senses. You twist and snarl it up so, and look 
right straight past the nabobs just as if you never saw them, and 
talk so honest and so thick about protecting the poor laborer, 
that you make people believe your gammon though f.hey know 
that after all it can't be so. You puzzle them so with your logic 
and other fine things that they are pretty much stumped for an 
answer to what you say, though they feel certain sure it can be 
answered. But here is one thing after all that I want you to 
look at, and I wish in mercy every laboring man would look at 
it, and then see if he wants any high tariff for protection, i( 
protection is so dreadful good for some, and makes the country 
so rich as you say it does, why would not it be good for all, and 
make the whole country immediately richer.' Say, for instance 
a high duty on cotton goods is a good thing for the cotton manu- 
factures, and adds to the wealth of the country: well then why 



20 

would it not he a (iood thing for (Government to give a bounty to 
fanners, caipenters, blacksmiths, painters and so on, f2;iving a 
b )unty to every man that got a Hving l)y his labor? Why any 
fool could see at once that that would be just as broad as it is 
long, and therefoi-e no benefit to any; because the government 
Avould have to tax the people to raise the very money to give 
them back in the shape of bouilty. But your tariff duties for the 
benefit of the manufactuier o'^erate as a tax upon the people, 
because they give tlu; manufacturer a chance to charge the pub- 
lic more for his goods than he could without a taiiff. So the 
long and short of it is that the government raise a tax out of the 
whole people to give to a few manufacturers, to make them 
richer, and I say that is wrong, and you ought either to give 
everybody a government bounty, which would be all nonsense, 
or else stop your high tariff system which is all wickedness and 
deception. 

I meant before this to say a word or two about that part of 
your message on the Railroads, and I don't know as its too late 
now. That Western Railroad will most likely be a good thing, 
but it is now in bad hands, and so long as it is, it wont do the 
public much good. You know as well as any body that a cor- 
poration has no soul, for you are perfectly conscious that the 
Manufacturing Corporations would kick you to the bugs to-mor- 
row, if you would dare to say a word against them, though you 
have served them body and soul ever since you had a voice in 
public matters. Well sure, a Railroad Corporation is no better 
than any other as to the soul, and you have had a chance to see 
that in the way the Western Railroad Company have tried to 
sponge the Government out of an exhorbitant price for carrying 
the mail, and when refused, throwing the mail bags out of their 
cars to go by stages. That's just about a fair sample of them 
Corporation chaps warmed into life in the foolish bosom of the 
public confidence, and then stinging their benefactors is their first 
return for their kindness. O, the vipers! Look out for them 
Governor, don't let them get hold too sharp, for if you do, they 
will never let go until they have sucked the last drop of our 
blood. 

Rut my tooth plagues me so I can't say another word now, 
and So good bye, 

AMAZIAH RUMPUS. 

John Davis, Esquire, State House, Boston. 



No. 8. 

S(iUANTtrM, March 2, 1842. 
To the Governor — 

In my last letter to yon I said a few words about the Western 
Railroad Corporation, and now I want to say a few more, just to 



21 

wind olFiike. The chaps tiiat manage that concern are after the 
Genera! Com t every year just as reguhir as the time comes 
round, for some favor or other, promising every time that that 
shall he the very last time of asking. In this way they have 
borrowed money of the State several times; I say borrowed 
money, because you see that State scrip as you call it, is nothing 
more nor less than the State's note of hand promising to pay so 
much money at such a time, and so it amounts to the same thing 
exactly as if the State went into the money market and borrow- 
ed the money heiself, and handed it over to the Railroad Com- 
pany. Well, I thought to myself last session, when they got 
their last loan, them fellows have got to to the end of their rope 
now at any rate, there is no danger of their coming again. But 
only just see how I was mistaken! Just as Jigular as clock- 
work, there they were at the beginning of the session, boring 
you again; and now I've about made up my mind, you always 
will have them, and so you might as well conclude to grin and 
bear it first as last. Them Kailroad folks are a regular part 
and parcel of the Government, a tburth branch as a body may 
say. I see they hold their sessions, regular every evening al- 
most. There's the Governor and Council, the Senate, the 
House of Representatives, and the Western Railroad Corpora- 
tion, and the last is by no means the least powerful part of the 
Government I don't see but you will have to amend the Con- 
stitution in such a way as to recognize and establish this fourth 
branch of the Government, for there is no getting away from it, 
and as the old saw says, — " what can't be cured must be en- 
dured." 

The last proposition of these Corporationers was a pretty sly 
one, and if you don't look out plaguy sharp, they will get it 
through the Legislature yet, and get your signature to the act 
before you know what it means The Corporation petition 
among other things, that other Kailroad Companies in the State 
who have borrowed State scrip to help build their roads, may 
have the privilege of increasing their capital stock, and with the 
money thus raised, buy up any State scrip in the market, and 
return it to the State, thereby diminishing the liability of their 
roads, now mortgaged to the State by that amount. Now this 
looks dreadful kind of the Western Railroad Corporation, to be 
so careful of the interests of the other Roads, and so anxious 
that they may be provided with a way to release their roads 
from mortgage. Don't it look disinterested, magnanimous, no- 
ble.^ Aint it conduct worthy of a great Corporation.^ Why the 
Western Railroad is about to become the patron and regulator ' 
of the other Roads; to be to Railroads what the late United 
States Bank was to Banks, the Great Resulatot'! Aint it a 
handsome thing ? Who shall say after this that Corporations have 
no souls? .This will triumphantly give them the lie! For here 



22 

is a case where a great Corporation lia:= soul enough to feel and 
care tor the wants not of men merely, but of creatures like unto 
itself, said to be without souls. It establishes the fact beyond all 
dispute, that Corporations have souls, and I hope Elder Knapp 
will hear of it, and take hold of it right ofFand try to save the 
souls of nil the Coiporations in the State. What a glorious 
moral spectacle, to see a great revival among Corporations, to 
see theni coining forwJird one after another, renouncing their 
evil ways, and aslving to be prayed ior! Jf Knapp is too busy 
just now battering the Universalists, why not take it up yourself, 
borrow one of his shad-bellied coats and go at it, calling Cor- 
porations to repentance, and saving their souls? Why, Gover- 
nor, you could get more honor, and more glory by starting that 
business than you could by twisting Buchanan's speeches out of 
line, from now to the end of time. Only think how fine it would 
sound in the papers — "The Rev. John Davis preached to a 
large concourse of Corporations in Lowell last week, with the 
most blessed effects. Some were converted and became hope- 
fully pious, others were brought to see the errors of their ways, 
and not a few are on the anxious seats. Truly many precious 
souls were edified by the labors of this devoted servant of Cor- 
porations " Or, agam — " W^e understand that quite an excite- 
ment prevails among the Corporations in State street, in conse- 
quence of their anxiety to save their precious souls; various in- 
teresting and fervent meetings have been held, and others have 
been appointed, at all of which that exemplary apostle of Corpo- 
rations, the Rev. John Davis, is expected to be present. In 
fact, to the pious and indefatigable labors of this reverend gen- 
tleman, is the present revival among Corporations to be attribu- 
ted." I tell you what, that would not read slow, and I guess 
you could make more profit out of it than you could running for 
Governor next Election, for you know Corporations pay well. 

But let the preaching go for a minute, and come back to the 
Railroads, and I'll show you in about half a shake that that 
proposition of the W^estern Corporation is a sly way of getting 
more money from the State without ever increasing the mortgage 
on its road. Look sharp now. The only State scrip now in the 
market is that issued for the benefit of the W^estern Railroad. 
This is in the hands of the agents of that Corporation, in this 
country and in England, pledged in some cases for money bor- 
rowed at the rate of 70 cents on the dollar. This is the scrip 
then which the other Railroads will buy and return to the State 
Treasury to release their mortgages, if this act passes. The 
Eastern Railroad had $600,000 of State scrip, the Norwich road 
$300,000, the Nashua ,^150,000, and the New Bedford $100,000, 
or about that, making $1,150,000 in all, for which amount the 
State now holds a mortgage on those good and profitable roads. 
Let these Companies increase their Capital Stock enough to 



2S 

raise sufficient money to buy up ^1,150,000 of State scrip issued 
to the Western Railroad Corporation, and return that to the 
State for the release of their mortgages, and how does tiie mat- 
ter stand? These Roads are then free Irom mortgage; — Good 
for them. The Western Railroad has the money, or a portion 
of the money paid by these Companies for the purchase of the 
Stale scrip issued in her favor; — Good for it, too. The 
State has ^1,150,000 less scrip to the Western Railroad 
out, and of course so much less- mortgage on that Road; — good 
too for her. so far. But she has also the ^1,150,000 scrip orig- 
inally issued to the other Roads, still out, and no mortgage or 
any thing for security for its payment; — bad for her, very bad. 
So you see, the long and short of the matter is, that the West- 
ern Railroad Corporation ask the State to give up the good and 
sufficient security she now holds of four profitable Railroads to 
the amount of ^1,150,000, in order to put money into the pock- 
ets of English stockjobbers, and the Western Railroad Treasu- 
ry! Would not that be nice? Would not it be a magnanimous 
sacrifice of the interests of the whole State, Squantum included, 
for the benefit of a few? Oh, Governor, these Corporations are 
cunning dogs, and until you get a preaching to them, you must 
look out sharp or they will sell the State under our feet. 
Yours, atfectionately, 

AMAZIAH RUMPUS. 
John Davis, Esquire, State House, Boston, 



Squantum, March 15, 1842. 
To the Governor—^ 

Well, I'm right glad for your sake you have got rid of them 
Representatives and councilmen for a little while at least, and I 
hope you will now get time to take a little mite of comfort, and 
set down quietly and answer my letters. Our member has been 
at home some days, with his pockets full of money, and he tells 
me they are going to have an Extra Session in September, to 
finish up some little things that they were not exactlv ready for 
now. I pumped him some to know what they had got to do at 
the Extra Session, but he was mighty crank about it, and it was 
as much as ever I could do, to get it out of him, that tlie busi- 
ness was to new district the State for members of Congress. 
It strikes me that that Extra Session don't look much like econo- 
my, tor all you and the rest of them appeared so terrible fierce 
to economize during the past session. VVhy, only look at it, — 
it's going to cost the State some Twenty or Thirty Thousand 
Dollars, at the very lowest notch to pay the expenses of that 
Extra Session, and all for what? Why, only to do some busi- 



0> 1 



nosrf that might just as well as not he put off to tlie next regular 
session of the Geuerul Court, in Jainniry next. " Because the 
regular husiness term for members of (Congress to be chosen 
under the new diatrict system, w >n't commence until December 
1843, and can't any way before the 5th of March of that year. 
But in all probability, unless the President should follow out 
our State fashion of economy, by calling an Kxtra Session, they 
won't be called upon to serve until a year from next December. 
This you see gives a plenty of time for the next Legislature 
when it meets in January next, to take right hold the first thing, 
and district the state, so that the members of Congress can be 
Voted for at our March meetings, a year from this time And 
so the calling of that Extra Session of the Legislature in Sep- 
tember next, was all useless, and a most abominable waste of 
the public money. Don't you think so ? 

I see what the whole scrape means, and I'll just tell you. It 
means, as plain as the nose on your face, — and that's plain 
enough, — that you friends in the last Legislature were dreadful 
scared for fear they should not have a majority in the next, to 
be chosen next November, and so if they put off the districting 
to that Legislature, they might lose the chance of cutting and 
carving the State up into whig congressional districts. And be- 
tween you and me, I think they had pretty good grounds for their 
fears, for just as sure as eggs is eggs, I don't see what can 
save your famous whig party from a pretty severe drubbing in 
this State next fall. The signs look mighty like it now, and if 
you want to go it, I'll bet you a bran new hat against that old 
ram beaver you skied up at Worcester when you heard the 
British had burned the Capitol, that the people will choose Mar- 
cus Morton, Governor, and a majority of Democrats in both 
branches of the Legislature. I know you think so too, because 
our member told me so in confidence, that you was dreadful loth 
to be run again for Governor, and had nigh about made up your 
mind when he left Boston, that you would not stand, He said 
that the big whigg in Boston would not let you Sfack out if they 
could help it, and he did not know but they might coax you to 
hold on one heat more. I 'spose my hint about turning preach- 
er, in my last letter, might have had something to do with your de- 
termination not to stand candidate again, but after all, you would 
not have jumped into the notion of that so dreadful quick, if 
you had'nt seen that your chance next Fall was pretty slim. 

But all that is neither here nor there to the main question, 
which is the extravagance of your party in the Legislature. I 
have just proved as plain as preaching that there was no sort of 
use in calling the Extra Session for the purpose of districting the 
State, and so it appears plain that the only good it will do is to 
give your party a chance to save some of their members of Con- 
gress. Aint that a pretty how de do, any way ? To tax the 



25 

people Twenty or Tliiity tliousand dollars lor the sole benefit of 
the whig paity ! I say, Governor, that is a Itetle too bad lor these 
hard times, and when the State is so poor ! The State ought 
not to pay a cent of the expenses of that Extra session, the 
whig party should pay the whole, for the session is called for 
their sole use and benefit. I've given you some pretty bright 
hints before this about your business as Governor, and now 
1 want to give you another, ^nd you may use it or not, just 
as you like. In your message to the Extra Session you had bet- 
ter throw in these views, pretty much as I've got them, and then, 
after showing what a heap of unnecessary expense it will be to 
the State, recommend the passage of an Act to assess the whole 
expenses of the Session upon the whig party. If you can only work 
that card about right, it will be the making of you, and secure 
your re-election by the unanimous vote of the people — perhaps. 
Because the people wilj be tickled with the notion of the thing, 
and will go for a man who will place the public burdens where 
they belong, and most of the present members of the whig par- 
ty, hating to pay the proposed assesment for the Extra Session, 
would cut the party, and swear they never belonged to it. In 
this way there would be but very little obstacle in the way of 
electing some good, honest man in favor of economy, and ij the 
choice should happento fall on Morton instead of you, why you 
have the interests of the State too much at heart, and are too 
implicitly devoted to the popular will, to say a v;ord. 

Now I want to say just a word or two about the State Tax, 
which the Legislature did not vote to put on, and then I have 
done. Our member tells me and I've heard the same thing 
from a number of other folks, that the reason the Legislature 
did not put on a State Tax to pay the debts which the State owes 
this year, was because you was afraid the Tax would lose the 
State to your party, and so you objected to it. Our member tells 
me that a majority in the House was in favor of the tax, and al- 
so in the Senate, but that your opinion, by some mysterious and un- 
accountable agency, changed the mind of several Senators, and 
set them dead against the Tax. This matter was talked over in 
the Caucus of the whig members, and they finding there would 
be a clear majority against the Tax in the Senate, concluded to 
back out from the Tax Bill which they had about passed in the 
House, so as to preserve harmony. Every mortal man that 1 
have seen, says the Tax bill ought to have passed, because the 
State owes the money this year, and she sho«ld pay her debts ; 
and I see the Boston Courier and some other newspapers say 
the same. The fact is, this borrowing money to pay debts, which 
takes the place of the proposed tax, is just about the worst way 
of doing business that ever was. 

I can show you nigh about twenty nice farms round this 
way, that are owned by Banks instead of the occupants, 
4 



2G 

becausfi these men have, for many years, been doing that 
same thing, — borrowing money to pay debts with, and whoever 
lends Massachusetts money to pay her debts with, iVom time to 
time, will in the long run be the owners of this State Besides, 
Governor, it looks to me as though you had made a dreadful 
mistake about losing the State by putting on a State tax. I rath- 
er think you will lose it, by refusing to put one on, and borrow- 
ing instead. You see with us plain country folks, it aint the tax 
itself tiiat we should look at, but the way in which the money 
had been spent for which the tax was wanted; now if that mon- 
ey had been properly spent, you would come forward boldly and 
confidently, and call on the people for a tax, and the people see- 
ing the money had been so spent, would cheerfully pay the tax. 
But by hanging back, and refusing to put on a tax, and by shuf- 
fling round and borrowing money to pay the debt, the people at 
once infer that the money had been extravagantly spent, and 
wasted, and that you, knowing it, are afraid to call for a tax — 
This is the way it will look. Governor, and this is the way it is, 
and moreover, this is the way you will lose the State next Fall, 
The refusal to put on a State Tax, has done more to open the 
eyes of the people of Massachusetts, than the heaviest tax you 
could have assessed upon them ; and my word for it, they will 
look sharp afcer the doings of you and your party and show you 
at the next election that they are wide awake. 

Yours lovingly, AMaZIAH BUMPUS. 

To John Davis, Esquire, Worcester, Mass. 



No 10. 

SQ.UANTUM, March 29, 1842. 
Dear Governor — 

I wonder if you remember that pretty figure you used in your 
last message but one, where you spoke of the good the demo- 
cratic administrations had from time to time promised the peo- 
ple? I forget exactly what the words were, but you compared 
thn people to a traveller in the desert, and there looking out lor 
better times, ^o the disappointment with which the weary travel- 
ler strained his aching eyes across the waste of .sands, in search 
of a fertile spot Well," I have a notion that the figure is just 
about as good now as it was then, atid if anything, a plaguy 
«ight more true. If you and the rest of the great bugs in your 
pa'rty, did not promise the people better times and no mistake, if 
they would only choose Harrison for President, tiien I don't re- 
member, that's all. Why that was about the whole burden of 
your song, except when you were running the democrats down. 
JRonst beef and two dollars per day, instead of frog soup and 
fifty cents a day, was the stoiy. High wages, good times, moii- 



27 

ey plentj, confidence restored, and all that sort of thing. Them 
were first rate promises, and corning from such nice tolks, with 
their clean black coats, white shirt-bosoms, and high-heeled 
boots, — and they meeting with the people in humble log cabins, 
too, — it was all-powerful; and the people jumped at the prom- 
ised good, just as hungry trout do at the bait in a cloudy day. 
But tliey have found out to their sorrow, just as the silly trcut 
do, that the nice, plump, inviting, bait of promises, was all de- 
ception and concealed a well barbed hook upon which they were 
ctFectuaily caught, and now hang dangling between heaven and 
earth, in an awful sight worse condition thin they were before. 

Your hard cider whigs showed yourselves right smart anaiers 
during that election campaign; for as trout jun)p at the angler's 
fly, quickest in a cloudy day when there are i'ew real insects 
sporting upon the stream, you reckoned that you must make the 
times appear dark and lowering to the people, by your awful 
stories of luin and disaster, so that they might see no real pros- 
perity afloat, and snap at your pretty promises baited upon the , 
cruel hook of federalism. But now they have got the real ruin 
and disaster, and no mistake, and all too in consequence of the 
doings of your party. 

Instead of retrenchment and reform in government, wiiich you 
promised them^ they find the expenses of government increased 
and increasing under the new administration. Instead of a full 
treasury, and no treasury notes, they find the amount of the lat- 
ter greatly increased, a permanent national debt established, and 
the national treasury disgrace.ully bankrupt. Instead of an end 
to the Florida war, they find that war still continuing, and the 
country, without any proper preparations for defence, in danger 
of a war with Great Britain, and another with Mexico. Instead 
of a prompt and ready attention to the important business of the 
nation on the part of the majority in Congress, they find the most 
idle and unprofitable Congress that ever assembled in Washing- 
ton, wrangling, fighting, and squabbling about any thing or noth- 
ing, and leaving the country to take care of itself Instead of the 
good times for business, high prices for goods, and money plenty, 
which they were led to expect, they find business affairs in a more 
appalling state than ever before in time of peace, prices of prop- 
erty ruinously low, and money scarcer an hundred times than it was 
when Jackson removed the deposites and Biddle put the screv\son. 

Governor, Governor! What is the meaning of all this.'' Where 
are them better times you promised us.^ Where is that roast 
beef and two dollars per day.'' I'll tell you a little story about 
that roast beef, and I guess that will show the kind of roast beef 
you meant. When the boy's used to play blind man's-buff in 
old times, the rule was, when the blind man was about to bump 
his nos^ against a post, lor the rest to sing out roast beef; and 
if that is the kind you meant why then I must say we have a 



28 

plentj of it now days. For evcrj day, aomc poor fellow, or oth- 
er, blindly knocking about in busuiesB in consequence ol' the 
squally times;, runs bis head agairist a stump, and brings up all 
standing, and then the rent cry out roast beef—oT baulirupi, 
which 1 suppose means tiie same thing. And in that way you 
have more than lultilled the promises, for not only the people 
but the Government have got the roast beef. But if that's the 
sort of roast beef we were to expect, I for one think we have 
had enough of il, and am ready to have the tables cleared. 

Don't you think now, candidly, between you and I, Honest 
John, that the people's eyes strain across the desert about as 
hard now as ever they did, in search of a green spot? Do you 
think them aching eyes that you told us about, have been re- 
lieved any? To be sure, your folks brought out one or two bot- 
tles of eye-water for them, in Congress, rn the shape of a Na- 
tional Bank, and a Fiscal Agent, but John Tyler thought they 
were quack medicines, and would not run the risk of applying 
them, for fear he might put the people's eyes out. Now the pa- 
tent eye-waters are all thrown aside, and there aint one of you 
willing to say he was ever in favor of using them. But they 
have got a famous eye-salve now that is all the go, and you all 
say that's certain lo cure the aching eyes of the people. That 
eye-salve is called a high tariff, and there is a monstrous great 
etfort now being made to have that applied, and rubbed into the 
people's eyes. In the first place it is prescribed by certain 
great tederal doctors, such as yourself and others, in public 
speeches and messages, and then certain little doctors in various 
parts of the country, such as B. F. Copeland and others, get 
together and get up what they call Grand Tariff meetings, of 
some twenty or thirty soft handed and soft headed whigs, and 
petition and memorialize Congress to have the aforesaid eye- 
salve applied forthwith, for the healing of the people's aching 
eyes. 

Whether you will make out to salve the people over with that 
story about high taxes promoting their prosperity or not, I can't 
tell, but I rather guess you will find it a hard go, at least until 
you are willing to declare that the wages of laborers ought to be 
raised in the same proportion as the tariff is, — which the whigs 
in the Legislature refused to do, when they passed them tariff 
resolutions at the last session. To carry out the tariff game, I 
see that many of your party are trying to bamboozle the demo- 
crats by crying out against party, saying the old party lines are 
all broken up, and that there never should be any parties, but 
that all should go together for the good of the country; always 
however as the whigs understand that good. Now this game 
puts me in mind of the fox who got caught in a trap, and lost 
his (ail. As soon as he met the other foxes he proposed that 
Hi(\v shnnlrl all have their tails cut off, Hsfoxc$ looked muck better 



29 

icilluut tails. So the whig party being all blowed up, the poor 
fellows now come forward and propose that all parties be given 
up, thinking folks look much better without parties. But the 
democratic party stand firm, and have nothing to be ashamed 
of, and like the old foxes, they will not follow the advice of their 
tail-less brother. 

Yours, affectionately, 

AMAZIAH BUMPUS. 
To John Davis, Esquire, Worcester, Mass. 



. No n. 

Squantum, April 6, 1842, 
Dear Governor — 

As it is just about a gone case with the whig party, because 
they have behaved so plaguy bad, I don't much wonder that they 
want all other parties to burst up too. What a rig they 
have run any way. In the first place their principles are so bad 
that they have to change their name, and steal ours every few 
years, so as to gull the people and get into power. Having now 
made out to do so by stealing the democratic name, — like the 
wolf in sheeps clothing they stand fully discovered by their acts 
to be genuine federal wolves, mstead of the innocent democrat- 
ic lambs they tried to make us think they were. 

The name of locn-foco not being quite popular enough for 
them yet, and havmg run their pretentions to democracy 
pretty well down, they have no other way to smuggle themselves 
into power again, unless they can have a general shuffling up 
of parties, and come out at the head of the heap. 

Governor, as true as I'm Araaziah, I think it is a gone case 
with them in Massachusetts, next (all ; and in that I reckon 
there aint such a dreadful sight of difference between us. I 
don't blame you a bit for not wanting to stand candidate this 
year to be shot down ; I would not if I was you, because its all 
perfectly ridiculous, and would not look well. Just think of it, 
— you was called home from the United States Senate where 
you was cutting out your way to the Presidency about east, just 
to lend a hand and rescue Massachusetts from the 'tarnal loky, 
fokys, and you did it like a man and did'nt make no bones about 
it. Well now when you are certain sure that it's a gone case 
and no mistake, and that even all your honesty won't save them, 
they want you to hang on yet, and use yourself all up to the lit- 
tle end of nothing, by trying to keep the party from destruction. 
But I see you're too smart for them, honest John, and it makes 
me think better of you than I did before, for I see you aint so 
green but what you have hekrd and mean to profit by the old saw 
that rats desert a falling house. And by the hoky, we will bring 



30 

that old house of federalism ahoui their ears this full iii a fash- 
ion that will surprise them Tlie old house is full of rats, in 
fact its nothing but a great rats nest from beginning to end, and 
the people have suffered amazingly from their depredations on 
the corn. They have got just about tired of the whole scrape, 
and next fall alter harvesting, some pleasant morning in Novem- 
ber, they mean to turn out all hands, and irive a long pull and a 
strong pull, and a pull all together, and bring the old shell down 
by the run. 

Gracious what a scampering there will be among the old rats: 
how Deacon this and 'Squire that will cut it to save their heads! 
The old nests, so snugly lined with plunder from the people's 
corn crib, will all be exposed, as well as the secret paths by which 
the rogues have travelled to and from the corn crib so slick 
and sly for years past. It is gratifying to see that an old rat 
like yourself has the sagacity to anticipate this state of affliirs, 
and act accordingly ; and I hope you will not allow your dear 
friends the federalists, who would skin you alive if they could 
gain a point by it, to persuade you to remain in the old house 
and become a victim to the crash that awaits it. 

As its getting to be about time to look after the grounds, cart 
out the manure, and get ready for planting, I don't know as I 
shall be able to write quite so regular for some time as I have 
done the past winter, nor such long letters ; but pray don't think 
that I have forgot you, for when I can snatch an hour in a rai- 
ny day, I mean to sit down and write you a line or two, sympa- 
thizing with your gloomy prospects, and giving you good advice. 

Yours truly, 
AMAZIAH BUMPUS. 

John Davis, Esquire, Worcester, Mass. 



No. 12. 

Squantum, April 27, 1842. 
To the Governor — 

As we have had a wet spell along for some days, so as I could 
not do much out of doors in the way of farming, I've been look- 
ing over the papers a little; and I see that your friends are pul- 
ling awav pretty hard on a new string to save their party from 
destruction. For some years past ruin, ruin, ruin, has been the 
cry, while the amounts of manufactures, agricultural products, 
private property, and public improvements have been steadily 
and rapidly increasing; and nothing could save the country but 
a National Bank. Well that's done with now; that jig's up, — 
and I don't see nor hear a word in favor of a Bank. What in 
mercy is the matter? What is the reason you don't any of you 
sing out for a Bank now days as you used to do.^ 



;31 

ril tell you uliy. Biddle's great rfgulator has blown up, and 
the people have all smelt (he rat, and fully understand the hum- 
bug, and so it is no go, and no kind of use to preach up Bank. 
The present hobby, is a protective tariff, and that will save the 
country (rom the ridn. It's a little curious that the country has 
been for so many years going headlong to ruin, and never got 
there yet- aint it? It really seems as though that ruin was like 
"the mirage of the desert which'recedes before the aching eyes 
of the weary traveller." {-lihtm, John Davis) There is anoth- 
er funny thing about it, and that iS thai the humbug of the day, 
whether it be a National Rank, or a high tariff, is always recom- 
mended by you big bugs as the only thing that will keep up the 
wages of the laboring man How wonderfully kind you are 
about the interest of the laboring man; you never seem to think 
or care about any body else. I should think your dear friends 
the lawyei's, and parsons, and stockholders in banks and facto- 
ries, and all them kind of folks that live on other people's labor, 
by their wits, would get put out with you, for always slighting 
them in your speeches, and thinking only of the laboring classes; 
but no, the good, kind, magnanimous souls seem to love you 
better and better the more you slight them. 

When the question was between a Sub Treasury to keep the 
public money in, and a National Bank to use it as a basis for 
loaning paper money to the stock jobbers, manufacturers, and 
speculators, you went all you knew how for the Rank and against 
the Sub Treasury, not because the former would help your par-- 
ticular friends oh no, but because the latter would reduce the 
wages of labor to the European standard. The same disinter- 
ested regard for the wages of the laborer is now shown in this 
hallaballoo about a protective tariff It aint to make the stock- 
holders m the cotton and woollen manufactories richer, oh, no, 
but to keep up the wages of the laborers! Generous souls, 
what can the laboring- classes ever do to repay you for such^ 
wonderful kindness.'' Just see how beautifully it works. Of the 
laboring population of this country, four fifths are engaged in 
agriculture, and of course, they consume by far the larger por- 
tion of the foreign goods which are to pay the high protective 
duty, and of the domestic goods which are to be raised in price 
by that duty. Now, only one tivelfth of the laboring population 
are engaged in manufactures, and yet for the make believe pur- 
pose of protecting the labor of this one twelfth, the fonr fifths are 
to be taxed a duty of thirty, forty, or fifty per cent, on what 
they eat, drink, and wear! Aint that dreadful kind of you.' 

But even of the one twelfth engaged in manufactures, only a 
very small part will receive any benefit from your high tariff, 
according to your own showing; for in your Tariff Speech in 
1832, in advocating a high tariff because it promotes competition 
at home, you say, as reported in the National Intelligencer, the 



S2 

federal newspaper at Washington, and as published in a pam- 
phlet by Joseph T. Buckingham, the federal editor of Boston : 
" The ground I repose upon, sir, is that home competition has 
reduced prices, and its cessation will raise them." I don't 
know as you have ever waked up from that ground since, and if 
you repose there still, I'll just trouble you to wake up and tell 
me, whether if a high tariff, by encouraging home competition, 
reduces prices, it don't to the same extent reduce the wages of 
labor.' If that is the case, and I don't well see how prices can be 
reduced, without bringing down the wages of labor, it strikes me 
your high tariff will turnout just about as great a protector of 
laborers in manufactories, as the inflated rag currency of the 
Biddle Bank did. 

A word more about the home competition, before you repose 
t)n that ground again. Won't the home competition produced 
by a high tariff, hold out a temptation to the cheap labor of Eu- 
rope to come over to this country, and by competition with our 
laborers, reduce the price of labor to the European standard? 
Sartain it will, unless you put on a high duty on foreign laborers 
too, and so prevent their importation. This is a plan that, you 
and your friends have never proposed, and I guess they never 
■will, for the manufacturers don't care how cheap they can hire 
•labor, the cheaper the better, and all their gammon about pro- 
tecting home industry, when put into plain English, means, 
feathering their own nests with all they can pluck from the earn- 
ings of labor, whether American or foreign. When you and 
your friends are willing to make a law that the wages of labor 
shall increase in the same ratio as the tariff does, or when they 
propose a high duty upon the importation of foreis^n laborers, as 
well as upon the clolhing and other necessaries of the American 
laborer, I shall really begin to think that your title of honest 
John really means so, and that your party have some claims to 
it also. So good bye. 

From yours affectionately, 

AMAZIAH BUMPUS. 

To John Davis, Esquire, Worcester, Mass. 



No. 13. 

Squantum, August 10, 1842. 
Dear Governor — 

This is to inform you that I am well and Mrs Rumpus too, 
though we are dreadful sorry to see that you are in a pretty bad 
way. I've been getting a famous crop of hay, and it has kept 
me so busy that I have not had a moment to write you a word 
hardly, since my last, I don't feci und§r any particular obliga- 
tion to you, because you have never answered any of my letters, 



• 33 

bul rionieiiow or ratlior, 1 can't b*;ar to see you in so much trou- 
ble and deserted by your triends, without writing a word or so to 
you. 

If you had only U.-tened to my advice about things, you would 
not have got the affairs of the State in such a shabby state as to 
make your friends glad to get rid of you 1 see they are elbow- 
ing you out pretty handsomely, and mean to crowd you off the 
track entirely, by talking ol' you for candidate for Vice Presi- 
dent ; but I guess you will find out that there is more talk than 
cider about that, whother hard cider or soft. You must feel 
pretty slim about these times when you think of all the smart 
things you have said and done tor your owners the federal party, 
all them tough stories about the roast beef and two dollars a day, 
all them crockadile tears you have shed for the laboring man, 
and see how ready they are now to throw you overboard, instead 
of sending you back to the Senate as you want them to. 

But that is the way they do it, Governor, and there is no help 
for it. The federal party are the real slave-holders of the 
North, and you and every other man that wants to succeed with 
them, must become their slave, and say and do just what they 
want, no matter what you think yourselves And worse than the 
slave holders of the South, when a slave becomes useless to 
them, they turn him adrift without ceretnony to shift for him- 
self That's the way they are going to serve Webster as well 
as you, and if you two have any notoriety hereafter, it will be 
as a pair of superanuated slaves of the federal party, wandering 
about the country in search of sympathy. Should 'nt wonder if 
you both became abolitionists, out of spite, and preached a- 
gainst the slavery of federalism, but repentance at this late day 
and from such a miserable motive, will secure you but little 
sympathy from the opponents of federal slavery — the Democrat- 
ic party. Neither of you \vould be of much use to the party, 
for Webster would cost too much, and your honest stories would 
be altogether too big ones for use. 

I gave you a hint in my last letter I believe, about the affairs 
in Rhode Island, but I am sorry to say you did not profit by it, 
but made a Judy of yourself by letting your Adjutant General 
send the State's arms to help the Algermes shoot down free citi- 
zens of the United States, and then again, you let the Algeriues 
come over into Bellingham, in this State, and commit outrages 
upon our citizens, and worse than that, murder a fSJassachusetts 
man at Pawtucket on our own soil, and not say a word about it. 
But yet you was forward enough to receive that requisition on 
you from the usurper Kmg of Khode Island, for the delivery of 
Gov. iJorr, and no doubt would willingly have sanctioned Dorr's 
surrender to the tyrant of Rhode Island and his bloody myrmi- 
dons, were he in your power. 



31 

Why, John I);i\is, honest Joliri Davis, what Icind of a man are 
you, and in what age oithe world, and country do you live? It; 
it possible that you call yourself an American, that you live in 
the Nineteenth Century, and that Massachusetts is your home? 
Such conduct as tiiut is more worthy of the dark ages, and the 
benighted countries of Europe! Shame, shame on you! How 
have you disgrace<! the State upon whose rock the Pilgrims land- 
ed when tiiey sought this land as the home ot" Freedom; — whose 
sjil is moistened with the blood poured out by Freedom's sons, 
at Bunker's Hill, at Lexington, at Concord; — within whose hm- 
its stands tiie venerable Cradle of liberty, — and whose archives 
boar the mighty names of Hancock, Olis, and the Adamses! — 
Did you ever hear of the Declaration of Independence ? Have 
you ever read it? How dare you then countenance the pitiful 
tyrants of Rhode Island who now imitate the oppressors against 
whom our forefathers rose in '76? 

Did you hope to curry favor with the Federal Party, and re- 
deem your waning popularity with them? Truly, you chose a 
pioper course, if such were your object; for Federalism and 
the Charter cause in Rhode Island are as one; but your object 
itself was hopeless, for you are used up, done for, finished, and 
the Federal party can make no further use of you. You are 
like an old horse I have, that I call the honest quaker, who some 
years ago, in hauling a heavy load of stones up hill, to make 
wall with, overstrained himself, and has not been worth a .snap « 
to work since. He now brouses about the pasture, feeding on 
t'iie rich clover, and is cared for for the good he has done. So 
in the last Presidential campaign, you proved yourself as faithfid 
a slave to the Federal party as honest quaker was to me, but 
like him you tried to haul too heavy a load, and those great sto- 
ries which you told about the low wages and sub treasury, and 
large promises which you made of prosperous times and high 
wage?, having all turned out to be false, have proved too heavy 
a load for you, and have broken you down with your party. — 
But you are much mistaken if you think you will be as well 
treated by your party as old quaker was by me. No, they have 
other uses ibr their clover besides feeding superannuated hacks; 
they keep it solely to feed young and active nags, and it runs 
short even I'or that, there are so many candidates I'oi' the public 
[tasture. Nothing can briiig you up with the party again, and 
so 1 should have thought you might ibr once have acted like a 
man and an American before you left the (lovevnor's Chair, 
and just taken a bold and open stand against the Tyrants of 
Rhode Island, and vindicated the honor ol'old Massachusetts. — 
An usurping Government now rules in that State, and it was your 
duty to have marched a force into the State at once, and seized 
l')e violatoi's of our soil and territory, and brought them here for 
trial and puriis.hment ; and as Ir.r the requisition of the Charier 



35 



Kintr of Rhode Island, you should have spurned it with the con- 
tempt that it desoi'ved. I siiall write you some more about this 
business when 1 ^et time. So good bye. 
Vours affectionately, 

AMAZIAH BUMPUS. 
TcTohn Davis, Esquire, Worcester, Mass. 



Squamtum, August 20th, 1842 
IJear Governor — 

I'll tell y(ju what I've a mighty notion of doing. Governor, 
and tliat is to tackle up !)o!)bin in the old chaise, and go to that 
Clam Bake down to Seekonk, to morrow. I can hardly spai-e 
the time to go, but they tell me that there will be a monstrous 
quantity of people there, and great doings, Besides, I pity the 
poor fellows, to think they are driven out of their own state to 
hold a meeting, because they are afraid of being snapped up 
and [)ut in jail if they dare to hold a meeting in Rhode Island. 
Aint it a hard case for them ? Poor Fellows, they ought to have 
their rights, and any man who says they had not, or would do 
anything to prevent them, is just lit to be a subject of Queen 
Victoria, and nothing else. 

Speaking of that, had'nt you better go, Governor? They 
would be mighty glad to see the man that lent the guns, and sa- 
bres, and pistols to the Algerines, to butcher them with. I rath- 
er guess they would give you a ivarm reception, as the paper.s 
say, and lay by all the mud clams for your particular use. By 
the way, if ever you went a clamming, you must say that them 
mud clams are a pretty fair resemblance to whig promises, fair 
to look at outside, with good nice white shells, but when you 
come to look into the inside, you find them filled with black stink- 
ing mud. If you would only show your head among them, I'll 
warrant you the Rhode Island women would give it such a bakc- 
iug that it would never be sott again. 

I see by the papers that you go round as often as possible 
showing your friendship for the military by eating their dinners. 
That's pretty much the way an old maid in our family, a distant 
branch of the Bumpuses, shows her friendship for us. Once in a 
while she comes cousening upon us, and stays a v/eek or so, un- 
til she has eat up all my wife's good things, and the next thing 
we hear of her, she is over to Braintree, quartered on our 
friends there, and backbiting us like fury. She has done this 
two or three times, and the next time she comes to make us a 
visit, I mean to tell her that if that's the way she shows her 
friendship, by eatino- our dinners, and then running us down, 
we've got cnoiisrh of her, and she can't come in. Governor if 



36 

you keep on catiiic niilitciry dinners, and then running the uidi- 
tary down, as you and your aduimistratiuti have ever since you 
tiave been Governor, aint you alraid they will tell you some fair 
day in November, say the second Monday, that they have got 
enough of you, and you can't come in'i I've been told that you 
was about ready to order that nice company called the Wash- 
ingtonian Light Guaid — the same one that was over to Quincy 
on a visit the other day, and a prime lot of Democrats they are 
by the way — to march to Pawtucket and shoot down the folks 
there, if they made any rumpus about one of their men being 
murdered by the Algeiine soldiers. But the Pawtucket (oiks 
kept cool, and there was no need of it. I guess the Li^'ht 
Guard would not have thanked you for such a mark of friendsliip 
as that, but rather have found you in dinners for the balance of 
your life than obeyed your orders. They gave you a quiet slap 
at that military dinner you went to at Salem the other day, did'nt 
they.'' Lets see, it was something like this: — Your man Friday, 
Gen. Dearborn, who has proved himself as good at loaning arms 
of war as in using those of charity, in oider to bfilster you. up, 
gave as a toast — "a well regulated militia, the strong arm of 
the government." In answer to which, a strong suffiage man 
gave as an amendment — "And a sure protection of the people's 
liberty against trie encroachments of government." Severe, 
wan't it.^ 

I see that Mr. Calhoun and others in Congress, have been haul- 
ing you and Mr. Clay over the coals for your speeches upon the 
Compromise Bill at the time of its passage, wherein you declar- 
ed that it would be disgraceful and dishonorable for any man who 
agreed to it, to attempt to disturb it at the end of the ten years when 
it should be in full force. That is what your friends in Congress 
are now trying to do, and no doubt with your approbation. By 
this it appears that Mr. Calhoun and the rest of them have not 
found you out yet — that they don't understand the meaning yet 
of your title of honest John. The saying that "it is an ill wind 
that blows nobody good," comes pat in this case, for, by being 
out of the Senate now, you are saved from the withering rebuke 
of the fiery Southerner, for the breach of faith you would doubt- 
less advocate. Gracious how you would quail before his bur- 
ning eye, and curl up beneath his scorching invective. You no 
doubt feel much snugger here at home eating military dinners 
and going to Commencement 

What do you think of friend Slocumb, of Medway, whose let- 
ters on Rhode Island have appeared in our paper.' Aint he a 
man after your own heart.' Just about such a Democrat as you 
and your Alias friends are.' 1 think he is a good deal such a 
chap as you, only on a smaller scale. You twist and turn wrong 
into right to get good fat offices from the whigs, and he to hold 
t)ti t(i [lis post ofliro.* new held at the mercy of John T) ler.— 



37 

That Mr. Wright, of Roxbury, used him up pretty well, but I 
almost wish I had taken hold of him myself, for I know the natur 
of the crittur better than Wright does. However, one man can't 
do every thing, and I have my hands full looking after you, to 
say nothing ol the farm — so he must 'een run to weeds for all 
me. 

Yours till death, 

AMAZIAH BUMPUS. 
To John Davis, Esquire, Worcester, Mass. 

* Amaziah is mistaken for once. Mr Slocomb is not now a 
Postmaster. — Ed. Democrat. 



No 15. 

Squantum, September 14, 1842. 
Dear Governor — 

I've just this minute been reading your address to the Legis- 
lature, and if you have no objections, 1 should just like to pick 
it to pieces a little, and see what it is made of. You know my 
way in these matters is just to let right out with whatever 1 
think, hit or miss, and I always feel certain that if it don't do 
any good it wont do any hurt. 

The first part of the Message is about the ratio of apportion- 
ment adopted by Congress, and there you flourish off a little 
about what has been done in apportioning in foirner times, just 
to let them know, I suppose, that you have been to Washing- 
ton, and wouldn't mind going back there again as Vice Presi- 
dent or something else. Sly old fox you are, and always keep 
an eye to the main chance, don't yer \ou seem to have some 
fever about " the importance of a just and fair apportionment, 
which equalizes as far as possible the fractions unrepresepted," 
but I take it, that was only a rhetorical flourish, as the Algerines 
of Rhode Island say of the Declaration of Independence, made 
for the purpose of winding off a sentence handsomely. Between 
you and I, Governor, I think it was all hypocrisy, and I guess 
your friends in the Legislature thought so too, for they have 
passed a Districting Bill which leaves in the city of Boston a 
fraction unrepresented of 23,383, and I'll bet a big apple you 
will sign it right off, without ever saying a word about it 

There is another pretty smart saying of yours in this message 
that I want to touch you up for, and that is this: — 

" There can never be contentment under an unjust distribu- 
tion of political power, nor under any measures designed to sup- 
pre.ss a fair expression of the opinions of a minority." 



3S 

'J'liat IS very good pi'ciicliiiiir, drcadl'ul lioiust and <;oiiscion- 
tious liko, enough to do a saint's iieart good to read; Init just 
look at the practice which you and your ptxrly in the i^«;gislature 
adopt, just see what a iniglity difference there is between preach- 
ing and practice As you can sue by looking at our paper ot" 
the 1 4th of January last, the number of democratic votes given 
for Morton at the last election was al,3G7, while t!ie number of 
whig votes given for you was 5.3,974, bliowi'g tiiat the two par- 
ties were not vevy far from being equal Now according to your 
preacluivj; as given above, the State should have been districted 
so as to have given the democrats four i.)istricts at least in which 
they would have a majority so as to elect democrats to represent 
them in Congress, leaving to the whig party six Districts; and 
all this might have been done, and made a plaguy sight better 
siiaped districts than some of the avvful looking things now made. 
But what has been done by the bill which your friends have 
passed, and which you will approve without a word of objection? 
Why, just given to the whigs nine of tiie Districts, and left one 
to the democrats because it could not be avoided! That's your 
practice, audit is just such kind of gammon as that which has 
earned you the title of honest John. 

After disposing of the Districting business to your own satis- 
faction, you say — " It seems to be understood, that as soon as 
this' duty is accomplished, the Legislature will be anxious to 
close its session." You thus limit the action of the Legislature 
to the business and you then go on to give them more than half 
a column about the Webster Treaty, and almost a column about 
the Land Distribution Bill, two subjects upon which they could 
not possibly act even if they wanted to. \Vhat upon earth then 
did you take up more than half of your message in talking about 
these matters for, if you did not expect any legislation upon them 
Of what sort of importance was it for you to say a word upon 
these subjects in your message? I'll tell you what it was for, 
and 1 know you wont de;:y it to me, because I can read you like 
a book. It was for electioneering effect that you lugged those 
matters in, and more especially that of the Land Distribution — 
You wanted to have one more chance to mumble over the labor- 
ing classes before election, and try to make them tiiink wl.at a 
dear friend you" were to them, and so you could not let this op- 
portunity slip. But it was a bungling afiair, and one that any 
man of common sense will see through at once; it will do more 
towards pulling off your mask, and showing to the people what 
a canting, hypocritical political rogue you are, than any thing else 
you ever did I thought you was about as cunning a man as any in 
the country, but I must say that in this case you have overshot 
the mark, and killed your granny. You seem to have forgotten 
entirely that you are the Governor of the State, and in your 
groat zeal to make political capital for yoursilt" in the (Misuing 



rjf) 

(election, attuully jro ouf oC the \v;iy to rnisTprcseiit tlie i-*icsi- 
ilent, viiity the Ueinocrats, and have ovtM* your sicktuiiiig pahxvcr 
about the lahorinjij classes It's in dreadful bad taste Governor, 
you may depend upon it, for the people have a little cominoji 
sense left yet, whatever you rnay think of them for swallowing 
your former stoiirjs. Yoti pive them a pretty stiff dose too, this 
time, and if they swallow it all, why then they have got much 
stronger stomachs than I ever, thought they had. I mean to 
give you my views about it next week, or week after, just as I 
can find time. 

By the way Governor, our member tells me that the Boston 
whigs have just a')out made you agree to stand for Governor 
again, as the price for a nomination on the Clay ticket for Vice 
President Rather hard for you, aint it? Because if you get 
beat for Governor, as you fear, and as I almost know you will, 
you would cut a dreadful sorr-y figure on the whig Pr-esidential 
Ticket. But hard or easy, that's the way they mean to serve 
you, — hold your nose to the grind- stone and make you turn it 
your-self, and all I can say for you is — grin and bear it. Your 
chance for being chosen Govei-nor is pretty considerable small, 
because there are a great many things that will go against you, 
such as your false promises of better times, the e.xtravagance of 
your administration, your opposition to a State Tax to pay the 
debts of the State, your friendship and sympathy for those pecul- 
iar friends of the laborer, the Algerines of Rhode Island, your 
utter hatred of the Suffrage cause and all its friends, and last 
though not least, your new-fashioned, double refined, patent ex- 
tract, honesty, which looks so much like old fashioned roguery 
that people can't tell the difference. If you can go it against all 
this, and get r-e-elected Governor, why, then I say you would be 
the best candidate for Vice President the British Whigs could 
find on this side of the Atlantic. 

Yours dutifully, 

AMAZIAH BUMPUS. 

John Davis, Esquire, State House, Boston. 



THE RIGHTS OF THE LABORER. 

[Extract from Marcus Morton's message.] 
It is feared that men of wealth and extensive business, some- 
times use the advantages which a bountiful Providence has con- 
ferred upon them, above their fellow beings,, to infringe the 
right of choice, and to control the suffrages of those who may be 
dependent on them for employment^ and perhaps for subsistence, 
but who, accor'ding to the principles of our government are their 
political equals. The laborer, whether upoii property of his 
own, or of others, should be the truly independent man. He 
produces more than he consumes, and so far from his being in- 



^ 



Ar 



\ 
^^^ 



4.0 



debted I'di" lii>i suitpoit, lie actually creates wealth. He in reali- 
ty is no more dependent upon his employer than his cniployet i^ 
upon him. The rights and obligations of the two classes are re- 
ciprocal and equal. And yet the dependence of the one upon 
the other, although imaginary, is scarcely less effective or less 
the means of coertion and o|)pression than if i. were real. The 
genius of liberty requires of every rational soul, a iree and hon- 
est expression of his unbiassed convictions and volitions And 
whoever would infringe this right, and corrupt, at its source, the 
freedom of elections, whatever other virtues he may possess, 
cannot be a real friend of the equal rights, of man nor a sincere 
supporter of the true princi[»les of the government under which 
he lives. 



DEMOCRATS OF NORFOLK COUNTY ! 
Are you prepared for the contest.'' The day is close at hand, 
when you will be called upon to discharge your duty at the Polls 
— AR*: YOU PREPARED .? Is your ORGANIZAtlON 
complete.^ Have you made arrangements to bring out your 
WHOLE STRENGTH ? The 'coon must be treed! MAINE 
has done her part of the work — MARYLAND has done her 
part; PENNSYLVANIA her part, and GEORGIA and OHIO 
have done nobly. Shall not MASS ^CHUSETTS follow suit? 
Be vigilant, then, and active! Norfolk County must give MOR- 
TON FIVE HUNDRED majority, and she has only to ivill, to 
accomplish! The strength is in her, only let it be brought out. 
ORGANIZE, then, brothers, if you are not already. Leave 
nothing undone — leave nothing to be done on the day of election 
but to put in your votes. Get every thing ready, and on the 
12th of November let John Davis hear a report from old Nor- 
folk, a hundred times louder than that of the FIVE HUNDRED 
-MUSKETS sent into Rhode Island, to shoot down the people. 



NOTE BY THE PUBLISHER. 

The Letters comprised in the foregoing pages constitute 
nearly the whole of the series of Bumpus Letters, originally pub- 
lished in the Norfolk Democrat. It was at first intended to add 
a few more, but there is not room, without making the pamphlet 
larger than we can afford for the price at which it is sold. We 
have pfinted an edition of two hundred copies more than we have 
orders for, and can still supply those who may want them. 
Deinccrat Office, Oct 20, 1842. 



